The Investigative Project on Terrorism
Mobile Edition
Regular Website

Emerson on Fox News: How Real is the Threat of Homegrown Terror in the US?

by Steven Emerson
Fox News - Red Eye
June 10, 2009

Multimedia for this item

Video Recording

GREG GUTFELD: He knows terror cells like I know cheap hotels. My next guest has been warning us for years that terrorists are being homegrown right here in the United States and now several incidents here at home seem to be proving him correct. I'm pleased to have on the set, Steven Emerson. He is a terrorism analyst and the founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a non-profit research group. Hey Steven, how are you?

STEVEN EMERSON: Good to see you.

GUTFELD: Glad to have you. Now we got a couple of recent incidents, the Bronx terror plot, where they tried to bomb the synagogues and then we had the Arkansas jihadist's murder. Are these just isolated incidents, because that's the way it's being shown in the media, that they are basically rogue weirdos and we have nothing to worry about. Is that fair?

STEVEN EMERSON: No, absolutely not. The fact is there is no conspiracy here but they what they are all tethered to is this cultural jihad that they learn that it's ok to kill the infidel, Jews, Christians, military targets and they're all embedded with this ideology. The fact is if you look within the last eight years you will find that the U.S. has stopped 19 major terrorist attacks here in the United States. None of them were connected to each other but like the Fort Dix plot where they plotted on killing 500 US soldiers; these were American Muslims who were living here for the better part of 25 years. They had all of the benefits of living here yet they became radicalized through the internet, through the mosques, through the Islamic organizations that teach them that the United States is the devil incarnate.

GUTFELD: But here's the thing…this is the weird thing about success. When you bust a plot, it doesn't happen and the media seems to only take terrorism seriously when it's successful.

EMERSON: I had a discussion with three FBI agents the other day about what would have happened on September 10th, 2001 if we had arrested 19 guys and charged them with plotting to blow up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; and everyone would have said this is just a crazy conspiratorial allegation by the government and they were entrapped. This is exactly the problem. The media doesn't take it seriously for two reasons. One, is their sympathy with the radical Muslim ideology; they look at them as victims. Number two, the media is more focused on being adversarial to the government. So the government's attacks on Muslims is perceived as the real aggression; not the attacks by Muslims against the US government or the US people.

GUTFELD: How good a job does the mainstream media do on reporting this stuff?

EMERSON: On a scale of 1 to 10?

GUTFELD: Yeah.

EMERSON: 1 being the least?

GUTFELD: Yes.

EMERSON: Negative 50.

GUTFELD: Really?

EMERSON: Absolutely.

GUTFELD: That wasn't part of the rating system, Steven. Had to be between 1 and 10.

EMERSON: It is so appalling and I have to watch it because again I deal with the media.

GUTFELD: Who are the worst? Who are the worst people? Bill Schultz is one of them.

EMERSON: No kidding. New York Times.

HOST: I can't talk when... Whoa! Cover that! We'll fix that in edits.

EMERSON: Sorry. The New York Times is appalling. If you listen to the 3 hour block of primetime on MSNBC, all four people that watch them, they don't have to use waterboarding, all they have to do is make the Islamic terrorist do is listen to Chris Matthews for two hours and they'll say anything. The fact is the most politically correct, pro radical Islamic commentary and reporting is done by some of the most mainstream media networks and newspapers and unfortunately there is no accountability. Nobody says to them you did it wrong because they're all busy taking on the US government. They think the US government is more dangerous than radical Islam.

GUTFELD: Yeah, and as long as the US government continues to do its job by keeping you safe, it makes it easier for them to do that because there is nothing they can point to.

EMERSON: They are victims of their own success.

GUTFELD: Yeah. You talk about the violent jihad and the stealth jihad. What's the stealth jihad? I imagine that's like the violent one but invisible.

EMERSON: Well, sort of like that because most people focus on terrorism that's the act of violence where you see the explosion, the planes blowing up, the buildings on fire, people jumping out of buildings; but everything leading up to that, the indoctrination, the prosetylization, the recruitment, the radicalization. That's all invisible to the naked eye. Much of that is legal and it's also part of the infiltration of the United States government. The Muslim Brotherhood designed a plan 30 years ago to infiltrate the US government. These are not things that I am making up but were introduced as documents in a trial recently and it shows that the stealth jihad is an effort to suppress your freedom of speech. Why wouldn't any newspaper reprint the Danish cartoons? Why did Random House not publish the book about the Prophet Mohammad's wife? Why are writers around the world in fear, living in this country in fear in full 24 hour protection?

GUTFELD: What's your take on the whole concept on the unclenched fist? I have a theory he's doing this, the President's doing this so that later he can say he did it and its part of a journey of coming to a conclusion. That's what I'm hoping. A conclusion that you've already reached; that the unclenched fist doesn't work, unless it's at a club with Bill.

EMERSON: I'm not going to disagree with you on this one.

GUTFELD: What about the club part?

EMERSON: Look, he wouldn't use the term terrorism in his speech. He doesn't use the words radical Islam at all. When he is asked who the enemy is he says Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is just part of the enemy. The enemy is jihadism. If you can't name your enemy as radical Islam, you can't ever expect to defeat it.

GUTFELD: But he did bring up 9/11 which was-I was glad he did that. I wasn't asking for much but at least he did that.

EMERSON: He brought up 9/11,on the other hand he's like let's go forward with the Iranians. Let's wipe the slate clean with the 240 Marines that they killed in 1983 in the Marine Barracks, or the Colonels that they hung in 1989 in Beirut. Look the bottom line is the aggression that has been committed by the Muslim world against the United States and the West or Jews and Christians has been a hundred times greater than we have committed against them.

GUTFELD: Now you can't live-you live in an undisclosed address, don't you? You can't-

EMERSON: Now I'm going to have to kill you.

GUTFELD: Have people actually tried to assassinate you or have you uncovered?

EMERSON: Listen, anybody who sends me a threat, whether its my staff, my mother, or somebody who hates me and there are a lot of people who do.

HOST: Your mother sends you threats?

EMERSON: She communicates with me. She doesn't use the internet yet. She breaks the computer. That's what she's afraid of doing. I don't take them seriously but there was a threat that was serious when I was informed about it several years ago and they forced me to leave my existing co-op.

GUTFELD: Really?

EMERSON: I couldn't even sell it because of the issue of potential someone bombing it.

GUTFELD: I think that was someone who wanted your co-op because I have acted on the same thing. I wanted to move into my building so I just made it a kinda death threat thing and I got the place.

EMERSON: Really?

GUTFELD: Yeah.

EMERSON: You do that in the right market I guess. They did it at the wrong time.

GUTFELD: Steven, thank you so much. Steven Emerson. Check out his website. Its investigativeproject.org. It's kinda scary interesting stuff. If you have a comment on what you're seeing, email us. Its redeye@foxnews.com.

Back to top of page